In an appearance Friday on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe,” Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said that the Trump camp’s newly announced qualms about the prospect of debating Vice President Kamala Harris — now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — show that the ex-president is “afraid.”
“He agreed to this specific debate, on this specific network, on this specific date,” Buttigieg observed. “And now, he’s pulling out. Of course, it shows that he’s afraid. It shows that he knows that if the two of them are on a stage together, it’s not going to end well for him. So this is a campaign that really has struggled to be about anything but Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And I think that’s the bigger pattern that you’re seeing here and part of why the Trump campaign is having such a hard time adapting.”
Harris became Democrats’ presumptive presidential pick after the withdrawal this past weekend of President Joe Biden from the race. He endorsed her as he stepped aside, and she quickly assembled the Democratic delegate support needed to move towards the nomination, also racking up endorsements from prominent Democrats and grassroots support in the form of surging campaign donations and volunteering sign-ups.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed in a statement on Thursday that it “would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.” (The debate under dispute was set when Biden was the candidate.) In fact, there’s no serious challenge at present within the Democratic Party to Harris’ candidacy. Cheung’s statement claimed that even former President Barack Obama was still wary of Harris’ bid, but the former president, along with former First Lady Michelle Obama, unveiled endorsements of Harris the very next morning.
Their posts included footage of a conversation with Harris from earlier in the week, undercutting a narrative of any lingering suspicions.
